What Happened Saturday Night

High school is hard enough. But Louise is different from other teens her age. For one thing, she has feelings for her best friend Nicola. Feelings she knows she shouldn't be having.
Another thing: she's going through changes, but these aren't the...

What Happened Saturday Night

The moon was round and full, the air was unusually warm for the season, and the wind smelled of pine and oak and maple. I ran with wild joy, my legs and paws carrying me quickly through the forests surrounding my hometown, chasing a doe who was losing ground with every passing moment. Leaping over the doe's back, I landed and turned to face the doe, which ran into my waiting jaws. After a few halfhearted attempts to struggle free, she stopped and grew still. I dropped the body and howled triumphantly before digging into my meal.

That was the last night I was normal. No, that's not right. I always knew I wasn't normal. But before that night, I could at least pretend that I was.

On Monday I arrived at school a normal human being, on the surface at least. I sped down the halls towards my locker, aware that everyone was looking at me, one of the most popular girls in school. Before this weekend that had given me great pleasure, to be seen and admired by everyone. But now it only filled me with anxiety. Did they know that I was hiding two terrible secrets? Did they realize that I'd turned into a wolf-creature over the weekend and that I'd come home after gorging on hunted deer in the early morning, climbing up a tree and into my room while completely naked? Could anyone guess that before all that had happened, I had committed one of the worst sins imaginable?

I reached my locker and opened it. The mirror reflected back an unfamiliar face: long strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, light complexion. They were my features, but underneath them I could see a panic that hadn't been there before. I looked away from the stranger in the mirror and began pulling out my books for the day.

Just don't think about it. I commanded myself. If you think about it, you'll only feel worse. So just don't think about it. Just don't think about it. Just don't—

"Louise?" I jumped, dropping all the books I'd pulled out. I turned around and Nicola was standing behind me. Dark skinned with long, silky hair, she stood about a foot taller than me even without the high heels she was wearing. Normally I would have been happy to see her. She was my best friend in the whole wide world. But after what happened this weekend, I couldn't even look her in the eyes.

Nicola grabbed my wrist as I uttered a weak "Hey Nicola," and tried to pick up my boos. Pulling me up and dragging me along, she said the four words I didn't want to hear: "We need to talk." I was dragged into the nearest girls' room, which to my relief was empty. Still, I wanted to run. I knew what she was want to talk about, and I didn't want to talk about it at all. I'd rather make it so that Saturday night had never happened, to just believe that instead of sneaking out to Nicola's place to watch Sausage Party I had stayed home like the good girl I was supposed to be. Damn that stupid movie! That stupid taco!

"Um..." I stammered, still finding it too hard to look her in the eyes. "Nicola, I...er—"

"What happened to you Saturday?" Nicola said, getting right up in my face so that I couldn't look away from her. "Where the hell did you go?"

I swallowed, remembering waking up next to Nicola's naked body. I'd then realized where I was, what we'd done. Before I could even begin to process what it meant or what I should do about it, I'd felt tingling on my skin and my body had begun to change.

To my horror and confusion, fur sprouted all over my body. My jaw and nose elongated and merged into a snout. From between my butt cheeks, bones and flesh that had never existed before shot out, long bristly fur already growing in. And as all this happened to me, something weird well up in me that I'd never felt before: a terrible bloodlust, a hunger for blood and flesh and the hunt.